# Most demeaning job? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 29, 2003, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-demeaning-job/221556 "2003-12-29T08:43:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Silver\_Serpentine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3be4f8/32.png) [@Silver\_Serpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_Serpentine)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2003, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-demeaning-job/221556/41 "2003-12-31T01:54:19Z")
I agree that Fast Food Nation is a really good book, but I don’t really know if you’d be able to finish it all quick-like. It talks about how they make atrificial flavor, meat plants, McDonald’s, the development and history of fast food, and it’s effect on the US. The most demeaning job I’ve ever had. Hmmmmm. Telephone poller or working in a Starbuck’s in a grocery store. People are so RUDE. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2003, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-demeaning-job/221556/42 "2003-12-31T04:28:42Z")
Wow, maidservice is demeaning? Thats nothing. THE most demeaning job on earth is a nursing assistant in a retirement home. You spend all day bathing old people and wiping their asses for $1.25/hr more than you would make at McDonalds. i went to visit one and it was disgusting, 90 year olds would shit on the floor and the nursing assistant would have to clean it up. ---
**Author:** ![Odinoneeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/97f17d/32.png) [@Odinoneeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odinoneeye)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2003, 9:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-demeaning-job/221556/43 "2003-12-31T09:15:50Z")
> [@](#): > > are required to scrub the kitchen floor on hands and knees, mostly as a trademark gimmick (as any actual proffesional housecleaner will tell you, a mop and bucket it better) Slight nitpick, this depends on the floor. My wife always cleans floors on her hands and knees on the first visit to a new client and whenever it needs it after that. She has one client with some kind of cork floor that she has to clean on hands and knees every time. ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2003, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-demeaning-job/221556/44 "2003-12-31T14:15:57Z")
My cleaner is a godsend. I couldn’t travel 50%+ and work ungodly hours, and still have any remote resemblence of a home life if I didn’t have someone to do the shopping, cooking, cleaning, etc. Damn straight I appreciate it. ---
**Author:** ![Stover9](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c68b51/32.png) [@Stover9](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stover9)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2003, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-demeaning-job/221556/45 "2003-12-31T14:59:16Z")
My employer is a 50 year-old female. Her husband’s salary is $500,000/year (tax attorney), so basically, the office I work in is just “for show” really. Anyway, she’s had my co-worker go to her house recently to do the following personal things: a) take a black magic marker, and color-in the letter " Y " on the placemat sitting on the front porch (their last name starts with “Y”, and she determined that the “Y” on the mat should be black instead of brown). b) determine how many chairs should sit around the dining room table - 4 or 6 (couldn’t figure out which “looked better”). c) dispose of cobwebs in basement d) pack their suitcases (underwear included) for family trip to Arizona. I could go on and on. . .quite unbelievable, really. ---
**Author:** ![Tir\_Tinuviel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@Tir\_Tinuviel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tir_Tinuviel)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2003, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-demeaning-job/221556/46 "2003-12-31T15:59:13Z")
If you’re going down the maid route, I’d recommend you read “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America” by Barbara Ehrenreich. It’s a very good book about trying to survive on the minimum wage in America, Ehernreich takes a job as a maid for a while, and some of the stories of what people had to put up with are atrocious. (Like carrying a heavy vacuum pack on their backs while having a broken ankle because they can’t afford to take a day off work to go and get it seen to or the kids wont eat). Frightning stuff. ---
**Author:** ![dwc1970](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a183cd/32.png) [@dwc1970](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dwc1970)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2003, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-demeaning-job/221556/47 "2003-12-31T16:12:58Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by look!ninjas \* > \*\*Working for a cleaning service in someone’s home would probably not be so bad. Working as a housekeeper in a hotel, however, can be really awful … People do things in hotels that they would never, _never_ do in their own homes. \*\* Can you give us any examples? On second thought, maybe I don’t really want to know. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-demeaning-job/221556.md?page=2)